Entries for month: April 2015

I went back to my hometown recently for my nephew’s wedding, and I
was in the company of my ten brothers and sisters. I hadn’t seen most of
them in about five years, so there was a lot of catching up to do.

After the wedding, when I was back home, there were two thoughts that kept popping into my head. One was…

“People never change.”

The other was…

“Boy, have we changed.”

The
first thought, “People never change” kept coming to me because it
seemed that all of my brothers and sisters had the same virtues and
vices they had when they were little kids and we were all running around
that big house together. My ISTJ sister is still entertaining or
annoying us with her many opinions. My ESFJ sister is still comforting
or annoying us with her motherly attentions. My ISFP brother is still
charming or annoying us with his gentle spirit. You get the picture, so I
won’t go through all ten of them. All I can say is that I kept feeling
déjà vu. I’d been there before.

It disturbs me to realize that people don’t change, because I’m an
INFJ. My greatest joy in life is trying out new ideas for personal
growth. The type theory was one of those ideas, so was learning to be a
good listener, to express my needs without anger, to be self-loving,
attuned to the present and content with the life I have. I feel like I
have gone through tremendous changes in my life, and I’m a completely
different person than I was when I was a kid.

But the truth is, I was relating to my brothers and sisters in
exactly the same way I did when I was a kid, playing the role of the
wise counselor or the person with big ideas for improving the world.
Sometimes it was welcome, other times it was not, but I was dismayed at
seeing how little I had changed.

In the type community, we talk of “type development.” We make it our
goal to practice the strengths of our type only when it’s appropriate
and to be flexible enough to call on something else when it’s needed. I
love that goal, and the pursuit of it takes us to exciting places.

Let’s not delude ourselves, however, that our personalities are like
soft clay that we can stretch and shape at will. I’m beginning to
realize they are more like great hunks of granite, and although we may
be able to make tiny chips around the edges, 99% of it remains exactly
the same.

That brings me to the second thought that kept coming into my head
after being with my family, which is, “Boy, have we changed.” Yes, we
all had the same virtues and vices, but there was something very
different in our gathering. There was a peace, an acceptance of each
other that had not been present in any of the gatherings before this.

You know the prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I
cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom
to know the difference.”

I think that after five or six decades of trying to change each
other, we finally had the wisdom to know that none of us were ever
really going to change, and the serenity to say, “So be it.”

People talk about growing older only in terms of its bad side - the
weakening body. They don’t talk about the fact that there is also a mind
growing stronger, a mind that can finally accept both sides of people,
and best of all, both sides of itself.

We know that personality type helps us realize that people aren’t
really trying to drive us crazy – they just see the world in a different
way!

But does that excuse some behaviors that really are difficult, even though they are different?

And isn’t it sometimes true that a strength can really become a liability when overused?

I
have a friend who is an ENFJ. She is so good at making people
comfortable in her presence and in getting under their skin to their
essence. This is quite helpful to her as a divorce attorney. However,
when a friend visited with her recently, she left feeling like she had
been with a “vibe sucker.” She felt absolutely drained. It wasn’t a
matter of a different style; those behaviors became difficult.

As
an ESTJ, I value efficiency and can be pretty good at attaining it in
many things that I do. When I am driving somewhere with someone else
who is not efficient in their routing, I become difficult. I offer
unsolicited advice and occasionally even unsolicited criticism.

An
INFP friend was so focused on his values that he cut off valuable
allies who could help him realize his dreams of creating an egalitarian
community. He became difficult to work with.

Years ago, my
friend, the late Susan Brock, came up with a STOP model to help us
identify when type was being misused – and to stop it. Here it is with
my modifications:

S – Stop strutting your type. Yes, you
can be proud of who you are -- some call it being psychologically
patriotic. But you’re not the only one who does things well. And at
some point in the future you’re bound to have a need to try other
approaches that may not be natural ones, but nonetheless are what will
be needed at the time.

And even more to the point, you’re bound
to meet someone of your exact same type who might appear to be a
complete jerk, turkey, wally (or whatever label you want to use).
Learning to stop the strutting will likely save you some embarrassment
in the future. T – Talking about everyone’s type. This
is about labeling and gossiping, which at times turn can into statements
like, “what do you expect…she’s just a Thinking type! She doesn’t care
about people and what she said in that last meeting just proves it.”
No one likes being gossiped about. And stereotyping is not what type is
all about!

O – Obsessing about type. Type doesn’t explain
everything. Putting the type model on every little thing that people
say and do just doesn’t work. Not all ESTJs love chocolate (or maybe
they do!).

P – Pushing tasks on people because of type.
This is the one where we might say, “Oh you’re the Extravert; you should
give the oral report.” Or “Sensing…let’s see, that means you should
take the notes at the meeting.” We all need skills in a variety of
areas. To not encourage the Introvert to give the report or the
Intuitive to take notes unnecessarily deprives them of a chance for
development.

Let’s try to recognize when different is different and when difficult is difficult and not get them mixed up.